Comic Book History Of Comics

by Fred Van Lente

[Heather]

The title of this book made me laugh so I borrowed it online from the library.

I don't know a whole lot about comics but this book packed a whole lot of history into it.  It starts with the development of the comic strip and then moves into the business ideas behind making books out of comic strips.  The early developers of the format are all profiled.

The history of comics seems to be mostly about intellectual property disputes.  Were comic artists creating work for hire in which case anything they made belongs to the company or were they authors in which case their creations belong to them?  For me the book got bogged down in the middle around the 1980s with all kinds of legal challenges.

I was more interested in the early creators like the men behind Superman and what Stan Lee may or may not have done for comics.

This book looks mostly at American comics with some side trips to France but it does contain a section on manga too.

This would be a great book for any comic book fans in your life who also love history.

 This review was originally posted on Based On A True Story